Former "Tasting Panel" returns as "Thursday's Bottle"

Here’s the deal: Ya’ll know I’m not up to consuming an entire bottle of wine every Thursday, so the blog feature I debuted as “Thursday’s Bottle” fell into the weeds pretty quickly after its launch earlier this year.
Much later, in a rare moment of genius, I thought: Why not marry “Thursday” with another former attraction: The CCWP “Tasting Panel”? I pulled the plug on the latter in mid-2013 after I decided it had grown too, well, “chatty.”

So once again, with little to no fanfare (considering my track record on longevity), welcome back to “Thursday’s Bottle.”

The rules? There are none. Let’s keep it simple:

When I stumble across a single bottle of wine so spectacular that deserves its own spotlight, that wine can stand alone as “Thursday’s Bottle.”

Otherwise, a consistent group of food and wine geeks as serious as serious can be will gather around a table, sip wine, talk and take notes. At evening’s end, I’ll gather all the notes and turn them into a story. Deal? Good.

I’ll always name the “tasters” and will never exclude a comment, but so that each of us can remain candid, I’ll never divulge who said what.

Oh, wait — there is one rule: We taste blind. No exceptions.

Four of us tasted grenache at my house on Friday, Sept. 19, which was International Grenache Day. Coincidence? Think again.

Bottle Three: “Tighter; sweeter; more oak; better with food — not a sipping wine; like a teenager, needs to be aged longer; has some SO2; thicker.”

Bottle one — 2010 Sillix Wines Grenache, Santa Ynez Valley
My first encounter with winemaker Blake Sillix was earlier this year at Solvang’s Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure, and his syrah and grenache were stellar. To have this bottle be corked was beyond disappointing.